In an earlier post, I mentioned that we were starting a platform to give some of our students an opportunity to use any available resources during their one year in Cambridge to explore in depth an issue that is close to their hearts. We will launch the plaform later in the year but we have identified two regions that we want our students to focus on. The first is South Africa and the next one is Indonesia.
Like South Africa, Indonesia is a fascinating emerging market. It is rich in commodities but it is only in the last five years with a measure of political stability that it has begun to think about how to grow economically in a sustainable manner that would also benefit as wide a swathe of society as possible. It has a young population that is eager to embrace the world but they want to develop in their own way and not ape the West.
There have been years when we had no students from Indonesia, but the results from the last two years has been encouraging with 4 students during this time. This has encouraged us to put more resources into our outreach in Indonesia and I will be hosting an information session in Jakarta on the 13th of September and you can register here. I will also be participating in an MBA fair in Jakarta that weekend.
Whether you are attending the information session, the MBA fair, or just keen to see how our Indonesian students use the resources in Cambridge, I would like you to suggest some topics, from which I can then choose one for the students to focus on. You just have to suggest a topic by commenting on this blog. Some examples of issues that have been suggested for South Africa are “How can the country sustainably benefit from its natural resources instead of just exporting the raw materials?” or “How can the country grow a global technology company?” I am keen to see what the suggestions are, and whether there will be any differences in the questions compared to those for South Africa.
